Campsites,Switzerland #1of4

In 1970 we spent a night in the campsite in Lugano. That evening the two Lindas said it seems there are boys in the campsites, but they have seen very few girls. We said we have seen girls, and other boys have seen girls, but the Lindas were not looking for girls, only boys. We spent the night, then drove toward Interlaken. At one place we rode the auto train through a mountain tunnel. The rainy weather made it not worth the effort to drive over the high mountain pass.

Another year in Lugano, we stopped at five or six campsites that were all filled. Didn’t look like we were going to have a place to stay, until one kind soul let us pay $15 to park on the street across from the toilet — but that was better than nothing. It was time for us to stop, as these had been a very difficult 150 miles or so that day.

We spent several hours shopping in Interlaken. I found a barber shop and had my every-other-day shave, this time by a blond with brown eyes and soft hands, then to the campsite. The next morning we visited the top of the Schlithorn Mountain by cable car, after cable car, four of them to the top. As we drove back to the campsite it started to rain, hard. We decided to see how fast we could take down the tent and get out of there, then we drove to Bern for dinner.

We drove through the little town of Spiez and stopped to take some pictures of that beautiful place. We looked for a campsite to spend the night, but since it continued to rain, decided on a small hotel in Worb, just east of Bern. The Lindas slept in the hotel room, and Emmy and I slept in the camper parked behind the hotel. They had a few animals in the back yard, something like a small zoo. Worked out just fine.

The streets in Bern are lined with arcades with excellent stores set back under the second floor, and protected from the weather. Bern is about our favorite city in Europe. One year the 1977 Dodge we drove had a problem starting sometimes, and it chose the campsite in Bern to demonstrate its obstinateness. By the time we got it started and were leaving the campsite, a couple of tents had been fumigated, and in our hurry to leave, we almost got stuck in the mud as we barely bypassed a huge rock. We returned here a year or so later, but in a different RV, so no one recognized us.